March 31, 2000

Anger Still Fires the Hell That Was Sierra Leone

By NORIMITSU ONISHI

ORT LOKO, Sierra Leone, March
27 -- In one of the two camps here
where rebels, ex-soldiers, militiamen
and traditional hunters from the
country's nine-year civil war are
supposed to disarm and start becoming law-abiding citizens, Sheak
Bnyallay stalked up to a visitor and
angrily removed his sunglasses.

A bullet fragment was lodged an
inch under his right eye. The eyeball
was permanently fixed at an odd
angle. Mr. Bnyallay, 31, was a soldier
who had rebelled against the Sierra
Leonean government -- a "sobel" in
the staggeringly complex classification of fighters who rose up as this
country sank into lawlessness.

The New York Times

In Port Loko's camps, civil war fighters prepare to rejoin society.

He was angry that since his arrival here a couple of months ago no one
had examined his eye. He was even
angrier that he had made no
progress in rejoining the Sierra Leone army.

"If they take care of my needs,"
Mr. Bnyallay said, his breath smelling of the cheap palm wine that
many in the camp use to get drunk,
"I'm loyal to the government. If the
government does not take care of my
needs, I know what to do later as a
soldier."

A reconstructed Sierra Leonean
Army is expected to absorb a few
thousand soldier-rebels; Mr. Bnyallay's injury makes it unlikely that he
will be among them. What happens to
this angry man -- as well as to the
tens of thousands of other ex-combatants, "bush fighters" with no military training -- may well determine
the future of this West African nation.

Even if United Nations peacekeepers eventually succeed in deploying
throughout the entire country and all
of the 45,000 estimated combatants
are disarmed, most people here regard that as only the first, and perhaps easiest, step in rebuilding Sierra Leone. Weakened by decades of
corrupt governments, devastated by
one of the most brutal wars in Africa,
Sierra Leone needs to be remade
from scratch.

"They don't have an army, a police
force," said Maj. Gen. Vijay K. Jetley, the commander of the United
Nations peacekeeping troops. "Or
should I say, they have some sort of
army, some sort of police force --
but only some sort."

The camps in Port Loko are run by
the British government; Nigerian
soldiers provide security. The Norwegian Refugee Council runs another camp for refugees. The Roman
Catholic church has a facility for
child soldiers, some as young as 8
years old.

There is no government here. A
few miles outside Port Loko, on the
road to Freetown, the capital about
30 miles southwest of here, villagers
crush stones alongside the road and
fill potholes in the hopes of collecting
some change from motorists.

The scene is a familiar one in
Africa. But here it has been pushed
to its extreme: the pothole-fillers are
boys no older than 10 years old. And
they have erected roadblocks, less
sturdy and dangerous than the ones
their older brothers used to put up
before the arrival of the United Nations' peacekeepers, but sturdy
enough to force motorists to stop. In
less than two miles, boys at a dozen
roadblocks cheerfully tried to extort
money.

According to the peace accord
signed last July, the Revolutionary
United Front, ex-soldiers and a pro-government militia were all to have
been disarmed months ago. Only
about a third, however, have gone
through these disarmament camps
so far.

A power-sharing government,
made up of government and United
Front officials, is nominally leading
the country until elections are held
early next year. Meanwhile, the
enormous job of rebuilding Sierra
Leone has become clearer as the
foreign peacekeepers have deployed
throughout most of the country, except, significantly, in the rebel-controlled diamond mining area.

The officials of the United Front
have little understanding of the diamond industry, much less of how to
reform it, said a Western diplomat in
Freetown. Even before Graham
Greene gave diamond smuggling a
critical part in his World War II-era
novel "The Heart of the Matter," it
had been at the root of many of
Sierra Leone's problems. The country's deep social inequalities, despite
the potential wealth of its diamonds,
have been the rallying cry for the
rebels in this war.

Oluyemi Adeniji, the United Nations' special envoy to Sierra Leone,
said that the price tag for disarming,
demobilizing and somehow reintegrating the country's fighters into
Sierra Leone's shattered society had
initially been $50 million. Now, delays and other problems make it
likely that the cost will be $90 million,
Mr. Adeniji said, adding that only
about $30 million had been raised so
far, with Britain as the main individual donor.

Private humanitarian organizations are also struggling to meet the
surge in demand for their services.

In Kenema, a town in the south, the
International Rescue Committee is
one of the organizations dealing with
the seemingly endless categories of
victims in this war. While people
whose hands, arms or feet were
hacked off have became the war's
symbols of suffering, other kinds of
victims are more numerous.

Girls were kidnapped, some taken
as sex slaves. Rape was used systematically to terrorize and drive
wedges between women and their
communities in a culture where rape
victims often become social outcasts, said Kim Vradenburg, program manager for the International
Rescue Committee in Kenema.

"It was typically not one man on
one woman but multiple men on one
woman," Ms. Vradenburg said, adding that most of the victims she has
counseled are younger than 14 years
or older than 40 years -- "those who
could not run away," she said.

Sierra Leone will also have to absorb an unknown number of child
soldiers, some as young as six or
seven, who fought in the bush for
years. Many were kidnapped by the
front's rebels, though many also volunteered. Most are illiterate, with
only one or two years of schooling.
Beyond the psychological damage
the children have suffered, it will be
difficult for them to return to their
communities, especially if they committed atrocities there, Ms. Vradenburg said.

Here in Port Loko, conditions have
improved steadily in the disarmament camps since they opened four
months ago, said Arnstein Hansen, a
Norwegian who manages the camps
for the British government. Three
months ago, rapes, looting and stealing were taking place regularly inside the disarmament camps as well
as in the nearby refugee camp, he
said. One time, a grenade smuggled
into one camp exploded, killing two
people.

Crime has been put under control,
Mr. Hansen said, but little has been
accomplished to reintegrate the ex-combatants into society.

"This is not working, not at all,"
Mr. Hansen said.

Following guidelines established
by the United Nations, combatants
voluntarily disarm and demobilize at
one of the 10 disarmament camps in
the country. As an incentive, they are
given $150 at the beginning of what is
supposed to be a 10-week stay, and
another $150 at the end -- considerable sums in a country where the per
capita gross national product is $140
a year.

In theory, the combatants are supposed to receive some vocational
training during their stay. But few, if
any, have received any.

Instead, around noon most of the
2,300 ex-combatants at one camp
here were milling around in front of
their tarpaulin tents or in the shade
of trees. Under one mango tree, a
group of men sat and passed around
a marijuana joint.

"I would like to improve my education, provided there is an assistance," Patrick Lahai, 35, said as he
took a reporter around the camp. He
said had been training to become a
teacher before he joined the front's
rebellion in 1991.

"Assistance? No assistance!"
snorted a young man from under the
mango tree. The man, Junior Barry,
was a tailor by training. He came out
of the shade, angry that he had spent
three months in the camp and that no
one had given him a sewing machine.
"We will go back to the bush and
fight."

"No, never," Mr. Lahai said. "I
will never go back to the bush."

"We'll take you," Junior Barry
said. "How will you survive?"

"I will cater."

"How will you cater?"

"Man, don't disturb me!" Mr. Lahai said.

Junior Barry walked away angrily, back into the shade. Under the
mango tree no one had moved. Nothing had changed. But the marijuana
joint was a lot shorter.